What is the advantage of shooting images in RAW format?
Images captured in RAW format allow for greater image quality and editing flexibility when you bring them into an image editor, such as iPhoto. RAW is like having insurance against your shooting mistakes—your camera settings are saved separately from the image data. For a more thorough explanation of RAW images, click iPhoto 5: Using the RAW image format. iPhoto uses the 16-bit RAW data to facilitate your edits before converting the RAW file to JPEG. This gives you greater editing flexibility since a RAW image’s exposure latitude is retained, which is not the case if you simply imported a JPEG file.